The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 12th May 2017

National News

Whistleblower doctor wins landmark case

DR CHRIS Day, a junior doctor who raised the alarm over dangerous staff shortages at the intensive care unit (ICU) at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Woolwich Common, last week won an important court ruling that will protect other doctors who also blow the whistle on dangerous practices where they work.

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Support for Palestinian hunger strikers

CAMPAIGNERS for human rights for Palestinians staged protests and vigils throughout Britain last Saturday to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israel who are now on hunger strike.

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Bully manager attacks RMT picket

THE transport union RMT staged a successful strike at London Bridge Underground Station this Monday, demanding the reinstatement of a member sacked for defending himself and his colleagues from an attack by an angry fare dodger.

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Royal Mail walk-out to defend reps

MEMBERS of the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) employed by Royal Mail in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire walked out on unofficial strike after two union officers were suspended over allegations of unauthorised overtime.

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Photographer arrested under terror laws

THE CAMPAIGNING organisation ‘I’m a photographer not a Terrorist’ (Phnat) last week reported that a professional news photographer was arrested and detained for an hour by police in Brighton under anti-terrorism laws for taking pictures of Hove town hall.

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The Rubbish Election

by our Scottish political affairs correspondent

THE VOTES in the Scottish local government elections have been counted and councillors chosen, but as the final result was a widespread victory for the No Overall Control Party we do not yet know who will actually be running Scotland’s 32 single-tier councils where all 1,227 seats were up for grabs.

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‘Immortals’ remembered at London’s Soviet War Memorial...

by New Worker correspondent

RUSSIAN and British war veterans and members of London’s thriving Russian community joined hundreds of Londoners in commemorating the victory of the Red Army over Nazi Germany this week. Local dignitaries and the envoys from many of the former Soviet republics gathered around the Soviet War Memorial in the shadow of the Imperial War Museum on Tuesday for the annual ceremony, organised by the Soviet Memorial Trust Fund, to mark the 72nd anniversary of the Allied Victory over Fascism in 1945.

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...and in Trafalgar Square

ANOTHER ‘Immortal Regiment’ marched through Central London to mark the 72nd anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. The tradition that started in Russia in 2012 involves a procession of people carrying portraits of their relatives or friends who fought and died in the Second World War, also known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia.

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Banksy chips in on Brexit in Dover

BANKSY is back! A large mural by the street artist has appeared on the side of a building in Dover and it shows a workman chipping away at one of the 12 stars of the European Union flag.

The artwork, which is close to the port’s ferry terminal in Kent, shows a workman on a ladder removing one of the bright yellow stars.

The guerilla artist from Bristol is known for his controversial pieces, one of which had been painted outside a youth club in the UK and sold for $405,000.

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International News

Big capital tops Le Pen

by Deirdre Griswold

THE far-right, immigrant-bashing bigots in Europe and elsewhere who had hailed the election of Donald Trump in the United States didn’t get a repeat of that scenario in the 7th May French election.

But the denizens of the Bourse, the French equivalent of the New York Stock Exchange, did get what they wanted, as did the capitalists oriented toward the European Union.

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Will Syria regain some stolen peace?

by Hummam Sheikh Ali

SAFE ZONES, or de-escalation zones, both names reflect one reality that some areas in Syria have become off limits to both the government and the rebels.

After the Syrian crisis broke out in March 2011, the so-called ‘popular uprising’ against the Syrian government quickly took the shape of foreign countries backing different parties of the conflict to take a slice of the Syrian cake.

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United States: The real loan sharks

by Stephen Millies

THE FEDS have arrested 10 ‘wise guys’ for loan sharking in New York City’s Howard Beach, a neighbourhood made notorious by the racist mob killing of African-American Michael Griffith in 1986. The gangsters allegedly hauled in $26 million over 17 years.

That’s chump change. The REAL loan sharks made as much money in just 80 minutes last year. US bank profits were $171.3 billion in 2016, or $468 million per day.

This loot is stolen from all over the planet: Africa, Asia and Latin America are forced to provide a reverse blood transfusion for US and European banks.

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Putin meets his former KGB chief in Dresden

Sputnik

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin has personally congratulated Lazar Matveev on his 90th birthday. The former head of the Soviet KGB intelligence group in the GDR [The German Democratic Republic/East Germany], was Putin’s boss when he worked in Dresden.

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Features

What is May Day’s meaning for today?

by Chris Mahin

HOLIDAYS are important. Whether joyous celebration or solemn remembrance, each one conveys some meaning or teaches some lesson.

When we celebrate a particular holiday — or decide not to — each of us says something about who we are and what we believe.

For the downsized and the dispossessed, one holiday stands above all others. It is the only one observed by victims of capitalism the world over: International Labour Day, observed on 1st May — May Day.

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The moral clarity of a media rant

by Rob Gowland

RUPERT Murdoch’s tabloid rag, the Australian Daily Telegraph, really got its knickers in a twist on 11th April when well-known progressive academic Tim Anderson used social media to contradict the capitalist mass media line that the Syrian government had launched a deadly attack on its own people with poison gas.

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Turkey under Erdoğan: a graveyard for the workers

ONE hundred and twenty-three workers have lost their lives within the first four months of the year in the construction industry, which is amongst the most dangerous lines of work in Turkey. Whilst occupational health and safety inspections are still deficiently conducted, the lives of construction workers working at high levels are safeguarded with only a safety helmet.

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